Onions from Lézignan

‘La Cébe des Lézignan es douça coumo lou pan’ (Occitan for ‘Lézignan onions are sweet as bread’. (from Monsieur Lucas’s website)

This morning we went on our annual trip to Lézignan la Cèbe near Pézenas to buy seedlings of the famous onions that grow there. I wrote about this village and its onions last year so I won’t describe them in detail now, but I’ll just say that they are very sweet when we start to pull them in June to eat in salads or to grill on the barbecue. Later in the summer they become less sweet and we use them for cooking. This morning we planted 50 seedlings next to the 50 seedlings of slightly earlier but similar Spanish onions.

Looking back at last year’s post about Lézignan onions, I see that while Lo Jardinièr planted the onions I sowed haricot beans…and exactly the same happened this year. I sowed a row of Contender beans, a few days later than the tradition date here which is 19 March, St Joseph’s Day.

Hummingbird hawk moth

I’ve seen a couple of these during the past week or so, rather earlier than usual I think, and managed to get a couple of photos of this one on our aubretia flowers this morning:

They’re hard to photograph as they never settle on a flower, but just put down a long proboscis into the centre of the flower, which can be seen here beneath the blur of the beating wings.

Spring lunch

At last the rain stopped and we were able to have a long, lazy lunch in the garden with friends.

We started with onions straight from the ground and grilled on the barbecue…..

served with romesco sauce (ground almonds, red pepper, paprika, garlic, tomato) and a bottle of excellent rosé brought from Navarra by our friends.

And the jasmine flowers are out:

Rain….and more rain

It’s been raining almost constantly for four days now – very welcome for the water supply but not very good for the morale or for spring work in the garden.

First lizard and a trip to the goat farm

It was a beautiful spring morning after a cold night, around freezing temperature at dawn but up to about 20 C by midday, perfect for our trip to Mas Rolland to fetch a trailer-load of goat manure.

The vineyards and the garrigue-covered hillsides looked beautiful in the sunlight and when we got to the garden there were lizards sunning themselves on the wall by the path.  Several of them scuttled under stones as I approached, but I managed to catch this one in time.

There’s nothing quite like goat manure for the garden.  We’ll be using this to improve the soil in the beds where we’ll be growing peppers and tomatoes this summer.

The apricot tree is still blossoming and the flowers were attracting a lot of bees – a good sign for this year’s fruit.

Daffodils, aubretia and jasmine are flowering, and there are a lot more jasmine buds still about to open.

Home to a good lunch….

Lettuce and wild rocket from the garden, sobresada and peppered sausage brought for us

from the Spanish border by our neighbour, chorizo and jambon cru from Lacaune.

Tomatoes germinated

The tomato seeds we sowed last weekend had all germinated by Friday (except for the Marmande) and were ready to go in one of the mini-greenhouses that Lo Jardinièr made last year. In the mornings we keep them inside but next to a window that has sun, in the afternoons they go out on the balcony. The seedlings seem to be growing very quickly! Now that they no longer need seed-starter box we have sowed the pepper seeds.

Varieties of peppers sown from seed we have saved or been given by friends:

Kandil dolma – a Turkish bell pepper with a very distinctive flavour. Only one germinated last year so we’re hoping for more this year.

Red marconi

Corno di toro

Spanish long pepper – seeds given to us by our neighbour.

Long pepper – seeds given to us by our garden neighbours.

Nardello

Piment d’Espelette – seed from paprika peppers bought in the village of Espelette in the French Basque country. As there is an appélation controlée for peppers grown in the area of that village I’m not sure whether the ones we grow here can be called Espelette.

Chorizo – another paprika variety. Seeds saved from peppers we grew last year from seed given to us by a friend in Navarra.

In the garden

The broad beans we sowed in autumn are flowering now and the second row we sowed a few weeks ago are coming up well, along with a few of the mangetout peas which always seem to be slower to germinate.

And two good meals from the weekend…

Above left, the cawl (Welsh stew or soup made with lamb, leeks, potatoes and carrots) we served for our soirée galloise on Friday, when we invited 14 French/Occitan friends to celebrate St David’s Day with us, and right, the paella I made for Sunday lunch with pork, rabbit and chorizo.

Red cabbage

I saw bigger red cabbages for sale in the market this morning, but we’re quite proud of this one because it came from our garden. There are several more ready to eat.

From the garden….	to the kitchen….
to the cooking pot with onions, ground cumin and a little vinegar….	to the plate. It went very well with Lacaune sausage from the market.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi / Saint David’s Day

And this year (unlike last year’s cold spring) there are a few daffodils out in the garden for the event…

On Friday evening we’ll be holding our now traditional soirée galloise for our Occitan/French friends and we’re planning a meal of laverbread (seaweed) and bacon, cawl (a Welsh soup/stew of lamb, leeks, onions and potatoes), Caerphilly cheese and welsh cakes.  It’s the only day in the year when we depart from our usual Mediterranean diet!

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus i bawb! / Happy St. David’s Day to all!